Heimia salicifolia

[tenacioustornado]

how many tips does a full grown bush produce and by tips only do you mean just the newest growth of leaves? If so I'd imagine you could continuously harvest them I've got some seedlings growing now about 2-3 months old.

[Pisgah]

A mature plant would have a very high number of tips. Very bushy plant. More tip trimming would make more branching.

Since I live in a colder climate, my experience is not fully applicable to Australia. With cold here, Heimia dies back nearly to the ground. I essentially do a coppice cut on the old branches. This encourages tons of branching in the Spring. Even if you don't need to cut it back due to cold, a dramatic pruning would encourage significant tip production. Pruning time would be near to the beginning of active growth, not before winter if you are in a colder climate.

[t st tantra]

in summer growth slows unless you keep lots of water on it. even then it grows seed pods as fast as it grows tips so yeild is lower.about 2 weeks between harvests.also i have had many small caterpillars nesting in tips which ruins the whole growth process so pruning out insect infested tips is also required in my area.

for best quality tips you are just plucking the last few leaves from the tip of a new grown branch.it should just snap off ,if not it is usually too old and wont produce as good a product.then tips are placed in full sun until a sweet smell develops.usually this process is continued until the tips are dry.

there is not much to a tip especially when dry and so it can take an hour to pick a few grams of leaf.add watering,fertalising and prunning and it is fairly labor intensive.also add the drying and turning and checking it has not blown away.

so i feel i must charge $5 a gram to be worth my efforts.fortunately this seems to be the value some users are placing on it.

t s t .

[vual]

I have Heimia salicifolia seeds for trade. (or simply giveaway, just pay postage) PM for details.

[DarkSpark]

Hey all i just have a quick question about the Heimia. I was reading a trip report on erowid and came accross this

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=14897

2.3) Extraction

Not being a chemist, I can only perform a very crude extraction of the alkaloids from Sinicuichi. This is, in my opinion, enough for spectacular effect.

Follow the directions as per tea, but continue to boil away the water. A yellow film should appear on the sides of the bowl as the water level decreases. Eventually there will be a gummy brown residue boiling in the bottom of the bowl. Turn the heat off and allow to cool. The residue will harden. Scrape everything off the bowl using some form of blade (a flat headed x-acto knife is very useful for this) and collect. It will glitter, because there are many tiny crystals in the residue. You should be left with a nice, slightly sticky, burnt-sugar colored powder. I found that 1/16th of this was an enjoyable dose, but be sensible and test the smallest amount of your extraction that you can before putting yourself in danger using larger amounts of unknown potency.

I am wondering if anyone has tried this with Heimia and how one would ingest the resulting product. It says it ends up as a "burnt sugar coloured powder" would this mean that it should be smokable. I can put a drop onto a cone of MJ leaf to help it burn and that way i wont get any effects from the smoko will just be heimia. From the sounds of it though the water extraction looks pretty good !

Edited March 17, 2010 by DarkSpark

[t st tantra]

i didnt want to drop my negative opinion but...

imho the resin part of heimia is too heavy on my chest.i developed a method of separating the solids from the resin and posted it a few years back.it produces almost a powder.

smoked some cured leaf with seeds,effective but not nice on my chest ,only smoked half,coughing next morning.

other people have different opinions!

t s t .

[PhoenixSon]

i also find heimia smoke heavy on the chest, I think it probally only effects heavy smokers? menat to be healer/tonic

I never seem to be able to get the brew to ferment...

Have done it multipe ways sealed unsealed. I do a bunch of 10cm tips cuts dried and fermented until it gets that nice sweet smell. Make a tea then leave in the sun average of three days.

could someone post pictures of a finished brew so people can gauge what a primo brew is.

be much appreciated

will try with just tips this week.

[t st tantra]

you can tell a brew is right when it is very milky,often with a few flecks of flourecent colour ,if it's strong enough.

it is often a little milky after one day and this seems to increase to max at about 3 days.sometimes it's done in a day.

one mistake i made for a long time was leaving the herb in the tea.it needs to be filtered very well or it will not go milky.

maybe the tea is not strong enough?if so reduce by simmering to a smaller amt and replace in full sun.i think atm that a wide open top with lots of air contact works best.

the herb can be boiled quite strongly a few times to get max extraction.

hope your answer is somewhere in there.

heimia cuttings are easy,break up 6 to8 cm pieces of hard wood and stick into soil.keep wet.no need to leaves ,new ones grow from the stem in about a month. prob took about 2 months till transplant size in summer,maybe 3.use humidity domes if you want to keep the foliage alive but it is not necessary.

t s t .

[PhoenixSon]

Cheers tst,

Summed it up nicely

much apprecaited

[planthelper]

one mistake i made for a long time was leaving the herb in the tea.it needs to be filtered very well or it will not go milky.

t s t .

 

what i like doing is to let the water extract settle in the fridge for at least 24h or sometimes up to a couple days.

and than you just remove the sediment.

sorry post worx in progress, they close here for lunch...

[planthelper]

ok, thats what i wanted to say....

filtering takes a long time and can be a messy process, and i was always surprised that nobody in the ethno communety talks about "letting the sediment settle out".

you save a lot of your time and get a better product, if you let the product of your initial extraction settle in the fridge for one or more days.

than, you carefully decanter the now clearer liquid off, making sure you leave all the sediment behind, which you now throw away.

you can still filter this liquid now, and with some materials i do that, but the big difference is that, if you filter now, it will go much much faster, as you got rid of all the gunk already!!

anyway, letting liquids rest for a while in the fridge, and than discarding the sediment,

is a process which i would recommand to all researchers!